Irish drama for Slamdance

One Hundred Mornings, Conor Horgan's excellent post-apocalyptic drama, has been chosen to play at Utah's Slamdance Festival in January.

Established as a grittier alternative to the increasingly corporate Sundance jamboree, Slamdance has, in recent years, launched such breakout releases as Paranormal Activity, The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quartersand Mad Hot Ballroom. One Hundred Mornings becomes the first Irish feature to play at the event. www.slamdance.com

McCann novel on screen

An unlikely coalition of talents was revealed last week when it emerged that JJ Abrams, creator of Lost and director of Star Trek, had almost completed a deal to adapt Colum McCann's award-winning novel Let the Great World Spin. The Dublin-born author's book details the way Philippe Petit's 1974 tightrope walk between the World Trade Center (treated, of course, in the documentary Man on Wire) affects the lives of various fictional New Yorkers.

“Hopefully we’re going to get a little cottage in the west of Ireland and go hang out for a while and work out a structure for the film,” McCann said of the Abrams partnership. “And then I’ll go away and write it.”

Church and state of Pullman books

Sam Elliott, possessor of the most magnificent moustache in Hollywood, has reopened the debate concerning the apparent cancellation of future movie adaptations of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materialstrilogy.

As you will recall, two years ago, a film version of The Golden Compassopened to passable reviews and respectable box-office. New Line Pictures' film did, it is true, make only $70 million in the US, but it took a whopping $300 million in the rest of the world. So what happened?

"The Catholic Church happened to The Golden Compass, as far as I'm concerned," Elliott, who played Lee Scoresby in the film, opined. "It did incredible at the box-office. Incredible. The Catholic Church lambasted them, and I think it scared New Line off."

Sure enough The Golden Compass, despite somewhat downplaying the novel's militant antitheism, was heavily attacked by bodies such as Catholic League for Religious and Civil rights.

Intriguing.

Big screen alternatives

Sensible folk who enjoy watching classic films projected on the big screen have been treated well in 2009. Cinemas such as the Screen, the Light House and the Irish Film Institute have offered a fine array of vintage classics.

This week the Light House drags out a shiny new, digitally restored print of Jacques Tati's Monsieur Hulot's Holidayfor a Christmas outing. It sounds like a perfect detoxification strategy for those who may have eaten too much Avatar.

dclarke@irishtimes.com

Why does a dog lick its balls? Because it can. Why did America invade Iraq? Because it could.  -  James Cameron discusses global politics with The Irish Times